Center scores on the power play and dominates in the faceoff circle

Share via e-mail

With Tyler Hawkins’s pounding drum beat and Dave Grohl’s scorching vocals weaved into a video montage of the Bruins’ greatest hits, checks, and smackdowns of this postseason, the feral music of the Foo Fighters whipped the TD Garden crowd of 17,565 into a good and proper frenzy by the time the Black and Gold took the ice for Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final on Monday.

When Patrice Bergeron skillfully potted a power-play goal at 14:05 of the second period, taking Jaromir Jagr’s masterful cross-crease pass and pinging it off the left post and past Blackhawks goaltender Corey Crawford, the accompanying fog horn blast came as sweet music to the delirious crowd.

It was certainly resonant for Bergeron after he helped orchestrate a dismantling of the Blackhawks in an impressive 2-0 victory to give the Bruins a 2-1 series lead in the Stanley Cup Final.

Compared with Saturday’s Game 2, when the Bruins slogged their way through the first period before earning a 2-1 overtime victory, this was a decidedly better game from start to finish.

“Against a team like Chicago, you’ve got to go hard every shift, you can’t take a shift off,’’ said Bergeron, who skated 32 shifts, the most of anyone on either team, in 19 minutes, 49 seconds of ice time.

“Yeah, it was a great pass,’’ said Bergeron. “I was expecting the puck to come, but it was a perfect play. I had to kind of settle it down a bit. It was a hard pass. It was a great pass and I just had to put it in, thankfully I was able to do that.’’

When he wasn’t burying his chances, Bergeron was burying the Blackhawks in the faceoff circle. He won 24 of his 28 faceoffs, including 10 of 11 in the first period.

“It’s something we take a lot of pride and we talk about a lot,’’ Bergeron said. “They have some very good centermen, so it’s not just about the four centers, it’s about everyone.’’

And, Monday night, everyone contributed in perfect harmony.

“I thought we did a decent job, it wasn’t perfect by any means,’’ Bergeron said. “But at this point of the year you’ve got to take the wins and move on and focus on Game 4.’’